For Alice, With Love

Chapter 19 - Calm

"When she wakes up, be gentle. She's had quite a fright. Be calm, Chris. We'll be able to see her soon."

"Be calm? I get a frantic voicemail and texts that Jet is at the house, so I leave in the middle of a dinner, and speed all the way home, and she's not answering her phone. I get there, and police cars and an ambulance are parked across my front driveway. I get there and they're escorting my ex-wife's boyfriend and her former bodyguard out of my house, and take Mel away in an ambulance before I can even see her! Calm, mom? Fuck calm," he steamed, his voice loud in the small waiting room.

Chris steadied his hands onto the back of a waiting room chair while Mel's mother and father stared at him, his own mother sitting across from them clearing her throat and folding her hands in and out of her lap. A couple on the far side gave him a dirty look. He flared his nostrils and breathed out purposely. Fuck calm indeed.

Mel was sedated, in a hospital room, after going through... Well what, he wasn't sure. But the sheer chaos he'd come home to, staring his ex-wife's new boyfriend in the eye and realizing he had hurt Mel. He had pushed into their home and—

He hoped the punch he'd gotten in before the officers pulled him away had damaged that asshole's perfect nose further. It had helped him, even if the officer's weren't pleased.

"Sorry," he mumbled and sagged his head. He hadn't slept yet, yesterday had been busy and then all hell had broken loose.

"It's fine," Mel's mother said quietly. "We understand."

He looked up at her, and shook his head. "All for these damned paintings. I really do not understand why."

"Did you end up finding them, dear?" his mother asked. They hadn't talked about anything other than what happened, and he'd forgotten about them the moment he'd started driving for home, his only thought to get to her.

"Yes. I did. We couldn't trace them any further back than the antiques dealer. They wouldn't tell us anything without a warrant, so I just high-tailed it to the gallery and bought them. No sense in trying to figure it out any more than that. They're still in the trunk of my car. Fuck."

"Language, Christopher. We are in a public place," his mother admonished, then sighed. "But I am damned glad you found them before your ex-wife did."

Chris blinked at his mother's frank language. Yes. Damned glad.

footsteps at the door caught all of them, and the nurse slid through and quickly shut them again, slightly harassed. The media had caught wind that Jet Prestone had been arrested, and they had followed the story to the hospital. Cameras and reporters were roped off in the main entrance, just off the waiting room where they were. Somewhere else in the hospital was Jet, getting his nose put back together, and they wanted their story.

"You must be Chris?" she asked, looking at her clipboard and then at him specifically. Everyone had stood the moment she had walked in, he had stepped forward, fighting the urge to jump all over her and demand to see Mel.

"Yes," Chris clipped, and put his hands in his pockets to force composure. He had yet to recover it and his mother was right. They were in a public place. He could normally compose himself better than this. Exhaustion and stress and the reason they were here was perhaps more than he could handle at this point.

"Ms. Harris is awake now, and she is asking for you. If you could follow me?"

"Can we take her home?" he asked, picking up his jacket, and motioning to his mother and Mel's parents.

"Likely soon, yes. She's a bit groggy, from the sedation. The blood on her head was not hers, and her wrist is only bruised. We've cleaned her all up. She's had quite a shock," the nurse said, eyeballing him, likely trying to decide if he was going to be a problem or not.